Archive for April 4th, 2012

We’ve had so much news traffic here at Earth End, that just like the newspaper delivery kids are saying, I haven’t been able to get a word in edgewise––a word that is about leaking nuclear power plants in our own country.

It is known that a major leak seeped out at the San Onofre nuclear plant near San Diego. While spokesmen for Southern California Edison claimed that workers were not in danger, environmentalists claim that this and other endangered nuclear plants in the country must be shut down.

Gary Headrick, who lives just eight miles from that plant, and who is a member of San Clemente Green insists: “If we don’t make them shut it down, it’s going to be too late.” The leak, from a steam generator tube, forced the plant’s temporary shut-down.

According to David Wright of ABC News, San Onofre is one of “several dozens of U.S. reactors facing new scrutiny after Japan’s nuclear crisis.” Like Japan’s nuclear meltdown, San Onofre sits in the middle of wide earthquake areas.

But at least 95 other reactors are in dangerous areas as well. Based on Japan’s disaster, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a report which found that 95 other reactors in the U.S. are in high risk areas for quakes. And Adrian Covert of gizmodo.com claims that some “50 U.S. nuclear power plants are leaking radioactive tritium,” mostly from corroded underground piping.

Edwin Lyman, a Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear expert, tells Reuters: “While the NRC and the nuclear industry have been reassuring Americans that there is nothing to worry about––that we can do a better job dealing with a nuclear disaster like the one that just happened in Japan––it turns out that privately NRC senior analysts are not so sure.”

And rt.com blog adds: “Even after the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima plant in early 2011 raised questions internationally over safety regulations, the United States has done little to improve conditions since.”

The problem is that most of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. are more than 25 years old. Yet NRC just relicenses them for another 20 years of operation. And the plant at San Onofre is nearly 50 years old. The Associated Press (AP) says that some 113 “alerts” in nuclear plants since 2005 are because of aging.

According to the Associated Press, the NRC has consistently weakened requirements for these aging plants. Now, even the NRC admits that a majority of potentially serious safety problems have stemmed from “degraded conditions.”

Leaking nuclear radiation puts the American people at risk. Such risks must not be taken for profit. Bible prophecies instruct leaders to protect their people: “if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned . . . [their] blood will I require at the watchman’s hand (Ezekiel 33: 6).